New York, NY, December 21, 2009 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it was "deeply troubled" by Pope Benedict XVI's decision to move Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII one step closer to sainthood. The League today called on Pope Benedict to suspend the sainthood process until the relevant Vatican archival documents are made accessible to qualified historians and scholars.

"We are deeply troubled that this step would be taken without the Vatican opening up its Secret Archives for the period before, during and after the Holocaust," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. "While we fully recognize that the process of sainthood is an internal matter for the Church, the issue of what Pope Pius XII did or did not do to help save Jews during the Holocaust is a profound question that should be resolved first, for the sake of the Jewish-Catholic relationship. We cannot understand the need to rush to do this now, especially while there are still survivors who are alive who feel the issue very, very deep... (more...)

How deep can one get?? I hope Pope Benedict gives all opposers the brush-off...

News stories about young Jewish bigots in the Old City spitting on Christian clergy - who make conspicuous targets in their long dark robes and crucifix symbols around their necks - surface in the media every few years or so. It's natural, then, to conclude that such incidents are rare, but in fact they are habitual. Anti-Christian Orthodox Jews, overwhelmingly boys and young men, have been spitting with regularity on priests and nuns in the Old City for about 20 years, and the problem is only getting worse.

"My impression is that Christian clergymen are being spat at in the Old City virtually every day. This has been constantly increasing over the last decade," said Daniel Rossing. An observant, kippa-wearing Jew, Rossing heads the Jerusalem Center forJewish -Christian Relations and was liaison to Israel's Christian communities for the Ministry of Religious Affairs in the '70s and '80s

"While we fully recognize that the process of sainthood is an internal matter for the Church, the issue of what Pope Pius XII did or did not do to help save Jews during the Holocaust is a profound question that should be resolved first, for the sake of the Jewish-Catholic relationship.

So one dares to ask, what does the Jewish-Catholic relationship entail exactly? Should one make insight into which side tends to be the more subservient obedient kind, or which side has more political clout and in general calls the shots more often during religious diplomacy? Why Jewish-Catholic and not Catholic-Jewish? Putting your name first infers a priority of Jewish interests over the other. I know one name has to go before the other, but this should evoke controversy over the true nature of such a relationship.